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Top 10 Conclusion Writing Strategies for Bloggers

Let me ask you a question: aside from your heading and opening paragraph, what’s the most important part of your blog post? Not sure? Yes, It’s your blog post conclusion isn’t it?

Yes? Your conclusion influences whether your visitors click the back button and leave your site or stick around and read more content, share your post and possibly buy your product.Below are ten of the best conclusion strategies, complete with compelling conclusion examples of each strategy for an example article entitled: “How to make $5,000 a month from SEO” that will help to:

Decrease your bounce rate (increasing page views and therefore ad revenue).
Increase mailing list signups (allowing you to directly promote your products/services to your readers).
Bring back repeat visitors (allowing you to build a stronger relationship with your readers).
Promote your own product or service directly to blog visitors.
Increase social shares (bringing more potential readers and customers to your blog).

Here are a few of the best conclusion examples strategies, complete with examples of each strategy for an example article entitled: “How to make $5,000 a month from SEO”.

#1 – Emphasize your key point

Your blog post might have a lot of different points and in an ideal world, you’d probably hope that your readers hang on to every word you say and take action immediately, correct? Nice idea. Unfortunately, very few readers will actually do this. Emphasizing your key point ensures that at the very least, readers leave your site with a clear idea of the message that you were ultimately trying to get across. Don’t just repeat what you’ve already said and rehash content though. You need to find an engaging way to sum up your post that’s really going to hit home.

Here’s an example:

It’s extremely unlikely that you’re going to make $5,000 a month from SEO overnight, but with hard work and a bit of perseverance, it’s easily doable for most people within two or three months.

Remember, you only need twenty $250/month clients, ten $500/month clients, or five $1,000/month clients to hit your $5,000/month target.”

#2 – Ask your readers a question

If I asked you a question face-to-face, you’d respond verbally. If you ask your readers a question, a verbal response is impossible, so where do they respond? The answer: in your comments section.

Your comments section does a couple of extremely important things: it adds long-tail keywords to your blog posts and keeps your content fresh (great for SEO) and also gives visitors an opportunity to get directly involved with your blog (often making them feel more personally involved with you, your content and your brand – perfect!). Asking a question (or multiple questions) at the end of your post will encourage a direct response from your readers.

Here’s an example:

Do you think making $5,000/month from SEO is doable by following the guide above? Are there any other tips you’ve personally found helpful when trying to acquire high-paying clients?
Tell us in the comments below; we’d love to know anything we missed.”

Note: Don’t ask more than 2 – 3 questions; no one likes to be bombarded with questions. It’s confusing!

#3 – Give your readers bulleted points or tips

Lists are perhaps the most efficient way to communicate information. They’re clear, concise, and easily digestible. Perfect for summarizing the key points of your blog post. They’re also great for including additional information that wasn’t included within the main body of the blog post. You just need to make sure that any extra information is still related to the post and offers something of value to your readers. It’s usually best to limit your bulleted summary to just a few points (no more than 3 – 4 ideally). Any more will just serve as an added headache for the reader. Remember, the whole point is to summarize key points and tips, not recreate your entire blog post as a bulleted list.

Here’s an example:

Building a $5,000/month SEO business is easily achievable within three months or less.
You only need five $1,000/month clients to hit your target.
Once you have clients, your income is recurrent every month.”

#4 – Tell your reader what action to take

Most great blog posts will be jam-packed with actionable advice and ideas. The problem? Most blog posts aren’t written in a hierarchical manner. This means that readers will have a very little clue (aside from the natural repetition of the most important points throughout your post) which piece of advice is the most important and which action they should prioritize. The solution to this problem is simple: you have to actually tell them! This is called a call-to-action (CTA). But, you need to do this in a persuasive manner, otherwise, they simply won’t bother doing it and yes, you guessed it, they won’t bother visiting your blog again (goodbye ad revenue!).

Here’s an example:

So, how do you actually get started building your $5,000/month Search Engine Optimization empire?
Go to Google and search for local businesses in your area.
Go to page 2.

Give each business a call and explain the benefits of being on page 1 and how you can help them get there.”

#5 – Link to another related and useful post

If a visitor has reached the end of your blog post, it means two things: they found enough value in your content to stick around ’til the end (well done for writing such an engaging post!) and more importantly, they’re now going to click away from your blog post. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to leave your blog entirely. Your readers will be looking for somewhere to click when they reach the end of your post. The problem is that the “back” button or the link to Facebook on their favorites bar usually wins the battle. You need to give them a compelling reason to stick around by linking to another related and useful post that they might want to read.

Here’s an example:

Did you enjoy this post? Here’s a couple more you might enjoy:
The Art of Attracting $10,000/month SEO Clients Easily
How to Outsource Your SEO Work For Maximum Profit”

#6 – Ask your readers what they want to read next

Your blog only works if you’re writing content that your audience actually wants to read. Remember that. So many blogs are publishing rehashed content that doesn’t offer anything new or even worse, content that their audience simply isn’t interested in reading. Blog posts take a while to write, so you need to know what your readers actually want to read before making the effort to write one. The quickest and simplest way to work this out is to ask them, and the perfect place to do this is at the end of your post(s).

Here’s an example:

Do you have an idea for a blog post you’d like to see on [YOUR BLOG NAME]?
If so, I’d love to hear it. Feel free to contact me directly at YOU@YOURDOMAIN.COM and I’ll see what I can do.”

#7 – Tell readers about your next blog post

Now that you’ve got a reader to your blog, you’re going to want them to keep coming back and reading more content. But how exactly do you encourage this behavior? Answer: tease them about your next blog post. Let your readers know that you’ve got some great stuff in the pipeline; stuff they’ll likely be interested in reading. That way, you’ll not only encourage return visitors but you’ll also encourage email and social media subscribers.

Here’s an example:

“Next week, I’ll be posting about how to increase the spending of any SEO client by up to 300% by offering additional related products and services alongside your SEO services. Want to know the best part? You can fully outsource the process within 24 hours.”

Note: You might also choose to be more cryptic and say something like: “I’ll be releasing something big next week; something guaranteed to make you up to 300% extra revenue from your business. Sign up to my newsletter below and you’ll be the first to know when it goes live”

#8 – Ask your readers to share your post

Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the end of blog posts are common; you probably already have them, don’t you? (hint: you should!) Despite this, it’s highly likely that many of your readers won’t even think about sharing your post. Many of them probably won’t even notice that you have them (that’s what happens when readers are so accustomed to seeing social media share buttons on virtually every website they visit). The solution? Let them know you have them by asking them to share your post(s) directly.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. Most of your readers will be happy to help you out if they enjoyed reading your post, especially if they think their friends would also be interested in reading it.

Here’s an example:

“If you found this post useful, I’d be eternally grateful if you could help spread the word by tweeting, emailing, or sharing it with a friend on Facebook. Seriously, you’d be doing me a huge favor! Thank you!”

#9 – Ask readers to subscribe to your mailing list

According to research from The Relevancy Group, 66% of people (that’s two-thirds!) check their email multiple times a day. This makes email subscribers perhaps the most valuable asset any webmaster can obtain. With such direct access to your audience, you can market products and services to them, ask for direct feedback, or even just let them know about a new blog post they might want to check out. The possibilities are endless. Typically though, most blogs see extremely low conversions of visitors to email subscribers. Conversion rates under 1% aren’t that uncommon. Directly asking readers to subscribe to your mailing list is a great way to increase this rate and attract more subscribers. Just don’t be pushy or appear overly desperate.

Here’s an example:

If you enjoyed this post and want more of the same, make sure to subscribe to my weekly mailing list. I’ll send you a round-up of the week’s best blog posts and SEO news every week. It’s free! No spam…promise!”

Note: Letting your readers know that it’s totally free and that you promise not to spam them will often increase conversion rates even further.

#10 – Promote and highlight your own product or service

Selling your own products or services to your audience is typically what makes blogging worthwhile. But, while you might have information on your eBook or other product/service in your sidebar, a good chunk of readers probably won’t notice. Highlighting your product/service at the end of your blog post is arguably one of the best conclusion strategies for bloggers like yourself who want to increase sales and ultimately, make more money. Don’t be pushy or too sales-oriented though. The idea is just to make sure your readers know your product or service exists. If they’re interested, they’ll click the link (make sure to include this!) and pay a visit to your landing page.

Here’s an example:

“If you enjoyed this post, don’t forget to check out my book: Building a Profitable SEO Business in 3 Months or Less. It offers a step-by-step blueprint that anyone can use to build a profitable business, guaranteed.”

Note: This one works especially well if your blog post is directly related to the product/service you’re offering.

The Key Takeaway

It’s all about knowing the action you want your visitors to take. When you know this, you’ll be able to figure out which conclusion strategy is the best for your particular blog. Don’t be afraid to experiment with multiple strategies though. It might take a bit of trial and error to figure out which strategy works best for your readers and which strategy best encourages them to take the desired action. For your next blog post, choose one of the strategies above and try it out. If you don’t get the desired results, try a different one for your next post.

Do you have a conclusion strategy tip of your own? If so, please share it in the comments section below.

Learn How to Build an Outstanding Inbound Marketing Strategy

Ever since its origin in 2006, Inbound Marketing has proven to be the most invaluable marketing tool for companies and organizations alike. Formerly people used to opt for outbound marketing strategies that involved buying advertisements and contact lists and then praying for some leads to generate out of mindless spamming. Inbound Marketing challenges this theory by following the most result-oriented marketing strategies that have a direct impact on the target customer base of the company – no questions asked. Inbound marketing strategies are meant to attract and retain customers in a fashion that they will be enthralled to use the company’s services or products. There is no force involved, only logic.

” Inbound marketing produces both a higher quality and quantity of leads when compared to traditional marketing ” – Stateofinboundmarketing.com

Inbound Marketing stands for streamlining the marketing approach taken by companies, both budding and established. All companies tend to divert to inbound marketing sooner or later, to keep pace with the evolving customers. With the commencement of a new year, there is a rise of a new generation that is willing to accept the change, Inbound Marketing makes it possible to tap into this new domain with ease and influence their choices from the very beginning. For quite some time now, entrepreneurs have used many complicated and burdening theories of marketing, which signals the onset of Inbound Marketing, as it delivers great relief to the organizations inculcating it and to those who work in such organizations.

Does your company do inbound marketing?

After conducting an in-depth examination of the current market scenario, there is interestingly just vague news on how companies are providing inbound marketing services, and how their services are truly beneficial to their clients.

I have conducted a survey on two of the most prominent Inbound Marketing Agencies of 2014 – HubSpot and Communitize. These two, marketing icons research papers and documents have been analyzed over the course of my survey. Apart from these two prominent entries, I have also surveyed some small to medium-scaled companies that employ a total strength of 2-5 staff (29-% agencies) and up to 500 employees (8-% agencies). The annual revenue of these agencies varied from £50,000 to £1 Million.

” US, Europe marketing decision-makers allocate 34% of their overall budgets to inbound marketing strategies – 11% more than they dedicate to outbound campaigns, like banners, direct mail, and more. ” – Hubspot 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report

A summary of the analysis looked something like this – About 50-% of the surveyed agencies were anticipating a major increase in inbound marketing clients over a period of 1 year, and the other 25-% of agencies claimed their clients would shift to content services. The survey further revealed that most of these companies lacked the required knowledge of customer service, as a striking 83-% of these agencies were billing their clients for the services they provided.

Inbound Marketing Is All Talk – Absolutely Not

Are these agencies going to build a website? Are they only involved in online marketing? How to guarantee that there will be positive ROI if I invest in this agency? These are a few questions that the inbound agencies are well aware of nowadays. This is how they explained to us, their roles in growth hacking their clients’ business.

Out of the numerous agencies claiming to be good at inbound marketing, there are only a few with the required skill-set and capital to invest in such ventures. This is quite clearly portrayed by the figures in the survey, which stated that inbound marketing services were the reason for more than half of the profit for 19-% of agencies, whereas 64-% of agencies hardly made any significant profits out of it. More than 50-% of the surveyed companies were involved in full digital services while less than half offered different forms of social media, web design, online advertising, and email, SEO, or PPC in mixed combinations.

Channels used by Inbound marketing Agencies

The companies which bought inbound marketing services mostly belonged to the Business Sector, followed by the Technology Sector, after a huge gap. Companies involved in software trading, SaaS, IaaS, legal services, and recruitment sectors were least interested in opting for Inbound Marketing services. This portrays the scope for growth in every individual market sector.

My survey further revealed that 62-% of the companies were using Inbound Marketing services to drive product-related queries whereas almost 50-% pointed towards registration to their service.

Inbound Strategies generate Potential ROI

Inbound Marketing continues to gain prominence and grow stronger with every passing day. Out of the entire list of companies surveyed, about 51-% feel that their clients will prosper and continue to use their services while 25% feel that their clients will start opting for Inbound Marketing Services over a period of 1 year, owing to the devastating competition. This is a green signal for Inbound Marketing agencies to conclude that companies will devote a fair share of their investments into Inbound Marketing in the next 365-days, due to the growing prominence of Inbound Marketing. A minor percentage of the companies surveyed stated that there will be a decrease in Inbound Activities in the future (purely due to lack of knowledge). The increased budget of companies can be directly proportional to the growth of Inbound Marketing Agencies throughout the world, which is a positive sign for Internet Marketing Specialists.

Inbound Marketing Agencies – Why Your business needs it?

All said and done; it becomes highly important to educate companies about the power of Inbound Marketing. This is a serious challenge that hinders the growth of Inbound Agencies, which was a primary reason for worry, among the agencies that I surveyed. The next problem was meeting and allocation of budget for around 45-% of the agencies, which clearly showed that either the companies were not aware of Inbound Marketing, to suit their requirements or they simply did not have the necessary funds. The analysis further justified that Inbound Marketing was popular among the senior level which allocated significantly low resources for Inbound Marketing campaigns. 36-% of the companies surveyed, were inefficient to show business benefits and 25-% did not have a proper website/ landing page or a central buy-in point.

Lack of knowledge can be further demonstrated as 49-% of the agencies were not aware that inbound marketing could reduce the cost of acquiring leads, and if so, by what ratio. 10% of the companies even stated that they had never used inbound marketing while a measly 4-% said that they had their cost of acquiring leads reduced by 50-% through inbound marketing.

Other benefits of Inbound Marketing that are worth mentioning are an increase in the volume of leads, an increase in popularity and social presence, and better alignment of sales and marketing. Another element that gained tremendously from Inbound Marketing was the increase in the volume of marketing. Upon conducting another survey, I found out that only 17-% of agencies were dissatisfied with their ROI for services offered to clients and only a small number of clients were unhappy with the ROI the agencies were getting them.

Now, here I have a situation where on one hand, the majority of agencies claim to be happy with the ROI for them and for their clients whereas on the other hand, inbound marketing reduces their cost-per-lead factor. There is a reasonable explanation for the way ROI is being measured. The measured ROI seems good enough for the marketing department of these companies but is not satisfactory for its senior departments.

Even though social media management techniques made it possible to increase the number of likes and followers of the page, the business objectives of conversion are far from reached, at such an early stage. This is where Inbound Marketing takes the lead by not only driving traffic but also converting visitors into customers.

The Future of Inbound Marketing

About 80-% of the surveyed agencies were happy or extremely satisfied with the services they offered. 76-% of agencies said their customers were asking for more digital services, whereas only 24–% said that their customers were deeply satisfied.

Growth in demand has been recorded for internet marketing specialists as 43-% of agencies had ‘hiring more staff’ listed in their primary checklist for the coming days. The next best category for staff recruitment went to account managers by 33-%, sales staff by 22-%, and marketing specialists by 23-%, and directors by 10-%. But 43-% of agencies wanting to hire Inbound Marketing Specialists and Analysts is the catch here.

By hiring digital marketing specialists, these agencies can get diversified clients by satisfying their current client base with the best ROI and hope for future opt-ins by providing the best Inbound Marketing Services.

It’s a Good time to implement a proper inbound strategy

Interestingly, I can conclude that most of the agencies as the survey finds out – are looking forward to massive growth in the Inbound Marketing field. All data and statistics confirm that more companies are soon to migrate into Inbound Marketing strategies, and the existing companies are going to increase the Inbound Marketing budget this year.

The gap of unskilled and less-knowledgeable to skilled and informative agencies that provide Inbound Marketing services has to be filled. With the advancement of technology, it’s becoming difficult for all agencies to keep pace due to financial constraints, but it is clearly visible from the survey that companies using the latest equipment are faring better in terms of cost-per-lead. Being updated is not only advantageous for these companies but it also signifies that they are ready for a change, if needs be in the near future.

Conclusion:

Even though outbound marketing has been effective in many cases, but do you feel that Inbound Marketing is going to gain a firm ground in the coming days? If so, let me know the possible ways how the gap of unskilled and less knowledgeable to skilled and updated agencies can be filled. Share your views about the current state of affairs, in the ‘comments section provided below.

Are You Making These Digital Marketing Mistakes?

I’m a big fan of Seth Godin and The book ” The Father of Advertising David Ogilvy. As Seth said ” A story is always better than a “Sales Pitch ” I’m gonna make my points like a casual story! Anyway, this post is not about me, it’s all about digital marketing strategies, the common deadly mistakes that every brand and leader makes, that I have also observed quite far which is based on my research and experience. As an eCommerce consultant and practical inbound marketer, having the serviced dozens of firms in different industries, from insurance to banking, from manufacturing and exports to computer and IT products. My ideas and digital marketing strategy implementation have helped my clients give a boost to their business performance.

Horrible Marketing Strategies that Leads to the Dark Side

A classic example is that of a local insurance firm ( i don’t have the privilege to mention their brand name ), and when I analyze their 2013 Marketing Plan, I found their STP strategy as the same as of 2011 with small changes in the numbers and activities (seriously). I can see that clearly, they are not interested in conducting a fresh industry analysis/performance analysis, especially in a scenario where online insurance selling has come to become a norm. Some time spent with their brand manager reveals that the management continues to live in the period when local banner ads and billboards were the only attention-grabbing channels. Those managing the company’s marketing strategies were neither aware of digital marketing nor were they interested in the same. This is the situation with many organizations, and convincing them and delivering results is almost half of my job.

Most of the Sri Lankan brands today have the following tryst with digital strategy:

They either have no specific plan for digital marketing or even an Inbound marketing channel.
Maybe, They have a separate digital plan that defines the transformational needs and makes a case for investment.
Probably, They have an integrated digital marketing plan where digital is a part of their business.

However, Traditional marketing, mobile marketing, and online marketing are the three pillars of modern marketing strategy and if your brand leaving out the digital elements or out of your marketing plan, you are seriously losing a huge chunk of your potential business. I’m not a big guy or any Digital marketing guru either, but my clients say my result speak louder than my words! That’s why i receive endorsements and referrals from new clients. OK, let’s come back to the topic 🙂 Based on my research, here are some of the main marketing channels that you / your brands have been using. I’m sure, you are not getting the desired response from these efforts because you are not using them in the most efficient way.

1. Where & How to Place Billboards? Worst mistakes to Avoid.

On average companies allocate around 38% of their marketing budget on sponsorship and billboards. However, most marketing planners and managers don’t understand that too wordy billboard adverts don’t grab as much attention as they expect. Their billboards need to be more visual to make an impact because people don’t read the messages but see perceive the message faster. Most people don’t have the time to read through. Besides, large billboards are not sturdy enough to bear the vagaries of the elements – winds, rains, and snow.

Solutions & Tips – If you must include billboards and banner ads in your promotional campaign, use them wisely. They are best placed in locations such as close to restaurants, movie theaters, parks, and traffic signals where people are in a more relaxed state of mind. The traditional convention is to post them close to the highways. If you think that it is the ideal spot, make sure that the message has lesser textual information and more visual message.

2. Is Email Marketing Still Viable? Could You Be Sending Spam?

Email marketing, one of the most widely used online marketing strategies since the creation of electronic mail, was effective during its early years of application. Typically, companies used to spend around 11% of their marketing budget on email marketing, but with webmail service providers like Gmail, Yahoo! and others becoming stricter with their anti-spamming regulations; this is not a highly penetrative segment unless you are following the terms and conditions.

If you have chosen an email marketing service without some research and questioning, you are most probably wasting your organization’s marketing funds. How? It is easy for email service providers to run campaigns without opt-in and without complying with the email spam act. They can show you fancy bulk figures but there is no assurance that those emails are even ending up in the inbox of your target audience (leave alone they are your “target” audience).

Your business / Brand domain will be blacklisted by Anti-spam protection service providers like Spamhaus, MxToolbox, and more
Your domain IP may be blacklisted by ISP’s and other Internet Service protection organizations
Your email ( Maybe you have given/added your contact person email ) will be added to the spammer’s directories.

All unsolicited emails end up as spam. A few years ago, you could have imagined having some of them being delivered into the recipient’s inbox, but things are far more complicated today.

Solutions & Tips – Ask the email marketing service provider from where and how they built the email list. Make sure that they send out emails only to an opt-in email list. Get the facts and figures of their services for previous clients – email open rates and response rates. There are a number of other technical aspects to address – Do they have just a single mail server or IP to queue all the newsletters? Does their service comply with the spam act? All your email newsletters must have an “Unsubscribe” link as you don’t want negative branding if someone doesn’t want to receive your emails. Ask if the emails could be queued to be delivered at different times for maximum efficiency.

3. Are You Making These Local News Site Banner Advertising Mistakes?

Whether it is digital marketing or conventional marketing, the key to succeed and make the most impact is to do it the right way. Banner advertising on local news sites is a solid decision, but with so much ad space and movement on the pages, are you really getting the desired attention of the readers. Most probably not! Typically, a local news site will have more than a dozen banner ads running in rotation. How many times will the readers be viewing your ad in a given time period? You are most likely to be wasting money if you are not using this strategy in a methodical manner.

Solutions & Tips – Don’t start a banner ad campaign unless you have the right traffic stats of the website. Study their source of traffic, and the demographics of the readers – their age and languages. Then, you can choose a site that matches its readers with your target audience.

4. Should You Distribute Flyers? Hope you are Not Creating any Traffic Jam

Distributing flyers is one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise. However, like other conventional methods, it is not followed properly by most businesses. Almost 50% of your flyers will be wasted as they will end up in dustbins or by the side of the road. Most people neither have the time nor the interest in distributing the flyers. Another 30% are most likely not to read your message. Besides these issues, flyer distribution can have other “side effects” – it can cause disturbance in traffic, cause hindrance to public movement, and even irrigation. There is no opt-in and no way of telling if your message is relevant to a person.

Solutions & Tips – It is easy to fall for the idea of hiring some cheap and non-professional “guys & girls” to distribute your flyers. The thing is that this can prove to be costlier than getting some experienced hands to do the job. One big advantage of this promotional method is that it is easier for your flyer “distributors” to know the age and sex, place, time, and delivery method of the recipient. Besides, there is a very good chance that most of them are locals.

5. Are you doing SMS Marketing the Right Way? or Trashing Your Brand Reputation?

The launch of the mobile revolution followed the widespread application of SMS marketing by companies. But it has its own set of limitations too. When it comes to mobile campaigns you may forget to think about when it is the best time to send your messages. For example, your business model has limited period special offers available only after midnight. Sending SMS’s to your target audience during this time bracket may more be a nuisance than anything helpful. Spamming, delivery failure, and privacy issues are some of the other concerns.

Solutions & Tips – Choose the right SMS marketing service provider that follows strict opt-in/opt-out participation rules. The messages must be sent only with the permission of the recipients and there should be the option to stop receiving the SMS’s any time. Mobile marketing is cheap, fast, and more personalized as long as you are doing it right.

6. Cold Calling & Automated Voice Calls? Are you serious?

The traditional way to reach your target audience, cold calling, and automated voice calls could prove to be a waste of money if not followed properly. But, cold calling is a goldmine if you use it in the right way with proper strategy! The time of the call is one of the major concerns in this form of promotional method. You don’t want your target audience to receive your calls when they are in a serious event, for example, a funeral. If they are busy with their work, asking for their feedback or making an automated promotional voice call could be nothing less than irritating. Thus, there is a good chance that your cold calling and automated voice calling campaigns are doing nothing else but damaging your business’ reputation. Great example Sri Lanka Pizza Hut, Dialog Messages .. Do they have your permission to send their messages and adverts? Hell no!

Solutions & Tips – The solution lies in making calls at the best possible time, and this will largely depend on your target audience. Besides, it is better to leave automated voice calls out of the equation and give a human touch to all calls.

7. Blindly Spending on Social Media without any Action Plan.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn among others have hundreds of millions of users who are actively engaging with each other and are open to receive messages. Most of the social media advertising campaigns are non-targeted for a specific audience, Ad campaigns are not optimized for better ROI and even they are nothing but a wastage of money. When it comes to social media marketing, if it is not targeted, it is not optimized. That social media advertising is expensive makes things even more complicated.

Your product and services are limited to Sri Lanka, but you have targeted worldwide
Your product and services are suitable for a certain age group, but you have targeted all aged group
You are publishing social media updates, that is not really suitable for your target group/audience ( Time, Interest, Place)
many more…

Solutions & Tips – Ask the social media marketing service provider or Social media strategist to run a targeted campaign. If your target market is Sri Lanka and you have other demographics in focus, it is possible to target them on social media sites. Other key areas to improve include creating the right ad copy for the target audience and maintaining the optimal level of interaction – neither too high nor too low.

8. Print Media Advertising Fatal Mistakes Should not be Repeated

Print media Adverts are another ridiculously amazing way to grab relevant user group attention! Newspapers have vast readerships and some of the leading dailies could take your brand to millions of eyeballs. However, Print advertising is quite expensive, which makes it all the more important to do it the right way – all of it comes down to media planning. Without proper planning, your ads could be printed on the wrong pages and in the wrong sizes. If you have not prepped your business for the response to be generated from the ads, you are going to miss big on the investment and the opportunity.

Solutions & Tips – Identify your local audience and their behaviors, you can publish your ad on weekends when people are in a relaxed state of mind and scan through the entire paper. However, if you are printing it on a Saturday, make sure that your business is ready to handle calls on Sunday. If not, it will be better to advertise on a weekday. Don’t expect the readers to respond to your Saturday ad on Monday – most of them will forget about the offer.

List of Alternative Solutions

Marketing, without concern for the medium, needs to be done the right way. All the 8 marketing strategies mentioned above are quite powerful when planned and delivered for optimal impact. The key is to focus on your target market, timing, and using the right medium at the right time.

The Biggest Mistakes We See Companies make when they first hit Twitter is to think about it as a channel to push out information. – Tim O’Rellly & Sarah Milstein

Social Media Marketing – Make sure that your social media campaigns are optimized and your target audience receives something in return. Develop highly engaging content for higher and deeper interaction. For example, if you are selling insurance, give them safety tips, the importance of insurance, and how you can reach them better with your products, instead of just promoting your insurance products.
Local Search Marketing – There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people on the web who are searching for your product, company name, address, or phone number. Build your local search presence by creating and posting informative articles about your niche and business. Content marketing can involve writing niche-focused articles and posting on leading article directories to help your company information and web pages rank higher on search engines.
Inbound Marketing – At a time when conventional marketing methods are becoming more and more complicated because of stricter filters and relevance barriers, inbound marketing methodologies are the solution. While traditional promotional strategies are important, it is time for mid-level and top-level management and brand managers to change their perception of inbound marketing methods. Improve your knowledge about online targeting marketing as the number of people searching for your business is coming through the web.
mCommerce – With more than a billion smartphones shipped globally last year, mobile web browsing is claimed to surpass desktop browsing this year. The number of mobile internet users (on smartphones and tablets) is growing at a staggering rate, thus creating a huge market that is now surfing the web on the go. It is time to create mobile apps that can help you manage your business relationships with your target audience. You can use apps to process a wide range of functions, from facilitating transactions to payment processing, from reports generation to sending push notifications.

Conclusion:

It doesn’t matter what you think about the new-age media, it is becoming dominant and you cannot afford to ignore it, at least for your business. It is worth pointing out that a lack of knowledge and understanding and a veil of ignorance at the management level towards digital marketing is one of the major reasons why it is not addressed in most industry analysis and marketing plans. Contrary to widespread belief, the “transition” is easy and doesn’t require any sacrifices. If you are selling insurance products, it is time you allocate budget for search engine optimization (SEO) and have your product pages optimized. Find what your customers and clients NEED emotionally, not just what they want! There are thousands of other lessons to be learned.

Most of your target audience is sitting in front of a screen (a desktop, laptop, tablet PC, or smartphone) and trying to search and get more information about your product offerings. If you are not up there in the search engine results, you are missing a massive amount of potential business, probably much more worth than that huge billboard on the highway or those thousands of flyers could help bring. Put your business on the Internet “highway” and show them your brand and tell them what you can do for them! So, Tell me

Which one is your favorite Digital marketing strategy?
What is your opinion about unsolicited email Ads(spam) and irritating SMS?
Let me know your feedback about my post in the comments below.

Top 10 Digital Marketing Checklist For Marketing Professionals

The use of Digital Marketing is increasingly imposing. This trend has been consolidating in recent years and the number of shares in digital marketing, communications, and the use of an online strategy is increasing its acceptance and use in the SME segment and professionals.

It is clear that customers or potential customers of a product or service are increasingly seeking to analyze, search and compare on the web. For businesses, care for and maintain your online presence is a necessity today to maintain their growth and not lose out to your competitors.

Some basic considerations and questions you should ask when planning a digital strategy:

Business model and operational plan Analyze done so far, actions and results as it relates to digital marketing.
Web site updated, upgrade-able modern responsive (visible on any mobile device), and dynamic. To be used? It is optimized for search engines? It can be seen from a mobile device? It seems obvious, but many companies still do not give importance to what might be one of their main sales channels.
SEO and SEM: The work of natural positioning and payment website to appear at the top of search results on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, when someone searches for your product or service.
Online Advertising: On the Internet, search engines and popular websites are as large advertising billboards on public roads and in major newspapers. And they have an advantage: You can measure, analyze and fix permanently the campaign to optimize investment, based on the results obtained.
Social Media: It’s important to understand their approach, benefits, uses, and consistency to suit the communication needs of the company and its target audiences.
What we do with Facebook: We are or not? Fans will add, it is also for my company, we think of marketing actions, we define a concrete strategy for this network.
LinkedIn: It’s just to find work and new prospects, or can be productive for my personal development or even my business?
Google+ is another Facebook? It is important for positioning or can I use this for improving my online brand reputation?
Contents: Develop a content marketing strategy, information, notes, and actions related to your business, products, and services to help to improve the SEO of your business and at the same time provide excuses to interact with your customers and target audience. It is necessary to generate content?
E-commerce: Should I consider it for my product or service? It’s time to walk this path, what is needed? Sell online today?

Define a perfect digital marketing strategy covering the above points should be a clear objective for any company this year. Many companies will only adjust or adapt their strategy with new trends, for others it may mean starting from scratch, it’s time to act, and start walking your way around the Internet. If you are a professional marketer or brand manager, looking for a better online brand / personal brand development plan; then my digital marketing strategy checklist is useful for you.

How To Change your LinkedIn Background Photo

With the enhancement in mind, LinkedIn offers its existing and new premium members a new set of functionality that allows you to add customized LinkedIn background photos to your profile. With this new feature, you can make your profile more visible and presentable to employers and other internet users. However, right now this privilege is available only to the premium account holders with LinkedIn. The photo-centric redesign with LinkedIn offers a larger photo area for your profile and lets you add your own LinkedIn background photo images to your profile and stand out in the crowd.

With This New Feature, You Can:

Make your profile presentable: By adding a customized LinkedIn background photo to your profile you can make your profile visually pleasing and presentable. The picture you add will make you look distinguished and a larger photo area allows you to reach the employers easily. You can simply add your own images, Inspiring Quote, corporate logos as your header image, or even upload your stunning group and individual photos as LinkedIn Background Photo images.

Appearance and connection: LinkedIn also offers a gallery of images for you to choose from for your profile background. You can choose an image that relates most to your profession. This way you can connect your profile to your profession which is very handy for the out lookers.

How To Add/Change LinkedIn Background Photo? Easy!

Simple! With a user-friendly interface, it is very easy for LinkedIn users to add and change the background Photo images for the profile editing. Simply click on the tab “edit profile” on your profile and go to the option edit background. You will see an array of images in the gallery by clicking on the aforementioned tab. You can choose any image in the gallery for your profile or simply upload your own customized image from your directory. You can choose any image file format like JPG, GIF, or PNG.

How To Optimize Your LinkedIn Background Photo

The only reason behind adding your profile to the LinkedIn network is to reach out to companies and employers for better job prospects. There are a set of rules and criteria offered by LinkedIn to make profile view better and rank your profile for better searchability. LinkedIn Help center offers a set of suggestions to its users which help to optimize their LinkedIn Background photo professionally. It is very tiresome to make a professional profile without any professional help. As I said earlier, you need to have an active premium subscription to enable this feature. Here is some information about optimizing your LinkedIn background photo.

File type – JPG, GIF, or PNG
File size – 4MB maximum
Ideal pixel size – 1400 x 425
Use Your own Photos or Royalty-free stock images for background ( No copyrights images)
Add your Favorite quotes or Tagline to inspire your network/connection
DO NOT use large images with lot’s of Texts, tagline
Make sure you have enabled the ” LinkedIn Premium ” Option from your profile.
Share your timeline Images with your connections through social media or use any social Automation apps like buffer,onlywire,socialmotus, etc.

However, LinkedIn also offers you expert suggestions which you can incorporate in your profile details for better viewability. With this feature, you can are available to members who are not in your professional network. The connections out of your network can see your profile and contact you. In this way, you can open up the possibilities to be found by the employers outside your connections.

” Two New Users Join LinkedIn Every Second “

LinkedIn while introducing photo background for the LinkedIn users mentioned in a post that the feature is for the professionals who are looking for their career to the next level. The main motivation behind the redesigning was to ensure that LinkedIn networks grow out of boundaries and millions of users get its benefits. The new and existing premium subscriptions will get all the above-mentioned LinkedIn features at reduced and new rates. There are continuous efforts on the side of LinkedIn to provide a competitive edge to the users and offer ambitious professionals a platform where they can reach the next level of their business.

I hope my ” LinkedIn Background Photo Tips” will help you optimize your profile professionally. If you are a premium LinkedIn user it’s time to share your strategies.

How To Successfully Market And Promote Your First eBook

Have you done writing your first book? Well, if that’s your first book, it’s going to be difficult to find buyers for it. Why? That’s because people don’t know about you yet. More importantly, they haven’t read your book before, so they will be a little bit reluctant to buy your book. But, there is a way around that.

According to Forester, eBook sales are expected to reach 9.7 BILLION by 2016.

A few days back I wrote a simple short report about” LinkedIn for Marketers “, This is my second eBook and I used many, but different promotion strategies to get more eyeballs. According to my kissmetrics analytic goal; I can see 1627 total downloads within 14 days. of course, You can build your own platform in order to market your first book. I’m gonna write a short post about ” how to publish an ebook ” using your own blog.

You can create a blog to market and promote your first book to your audience. It is going to take time before you can see your first sale, but it will only get better once you’re able to build authority with your blog. Here are 5 simple, yet powerful methods to use your blog to successfully market your first book:

1. Use Your Personal Blog To Build Your Platform

Every successful author has their own blog platform. They use their platform to build their fan base and market their writings. If you want to succeed with your first book, this is what you’re going to do. You have to use your own blog as your marketing platform to publishing your eBook. Remember, you are building your blog to attract new fans to your writings. You are not using it to build your traffic and put some ads in it so that you can make some money. No, you are using your blog to sell your book. This is the purpose that you need to remember because most new authors will easily deviate from this purpose after some time.

2. Don’t Forget To Use Your Mailing List Effectively

The most effective way to build your fan base is to use a mailing list on your blog. Again, this is what many new authors miss. They just create a new blog and start writing content after content, without any intention to build a list out of their blog traffic. This is wrong. If you want to attract the attention of your readers and make them want to stick their attention toward your works, you have to use your mailing list to promote your works to them. Your blog alone doesn’t cut it. On the other hand, by using a mailing list, you will be able to create personal communication with your readers.

3. Always Get Your Audience First Before Releasing Your Book

Don’t release your book right away. This is the rule of engagement that you have to follow. Before releasing your book, you have to gather your audience first on your blog, fan page, or your G+ Page/profile for creating a teaser about your upcoming release and updates. In other words, you have to capture loyal readers on your blog first before releasing your first book in front of them. This strategy will help you to promote your book more successfully to your audience because you will make them familiarize themselves with your writing before asking them to read your book. You can write a free book that will help to presell your main book in the meantime. Don’t forget to ask your readers’ feedback. Once you get positive feedback’s from them, then it’s time for you to release your book.

4. Build Raving Fans For Your Work

Remember that what you are aiming for here is to build raving fans for your work. You can’t do it without making them satisfied with the work that you do. For instance, if your readers buy your book and they don’t feel satisfied with it, they will not be willing to read your other books in the future. On the other hand, if they buy your book and they feel satisfied with it, they will buy your other books in the future. They will become your raving fans (i.e. your loyal customers). So, it’s important for you to build raving fans for your work. In order to do that, you have to check the quality of the work that you do on your blog, whether it is a blog post, podcast, video, infographic, or free report. You need to make your readers feel satisfied with your work and leave them wanting more.

5. Measure The Results and Go For The Next Project

If you already have success in your first book launch, don’t stop there. Many authors will usually become too proud of their first success that they think that writing their first book is the only thing that matters. Remember that soon or later, your book will be forgotten by your readers, as there will be better books that are being released in the future. If your book is forgotten, your name will be forgotten as well. So, even though you have success in marketing your first book, this is not the end of the road for you. You have to go for the next project and keep your readers mesmerized with your other works. Release your second book after a few months, and then release the third book. You have to keep doing the necessary work to keep yourself productive so that your readers will not stop following you.

Conclusion:

Those are the tips that you can follow in order to successfully market your first book with your blog. It’s simple to build a blog, and it’s simple to write a blog post and publish it on your blog. Why don’t you use this virtual asset to your advantage? If you are an aspiring author, you can always build your own platform and promote your own writings with your blog. Now, Which of these methods would perform well on your next book publishing? Leave a comment below?

How To Attract New Passionate Readers To Your Blog

What is the most important thing that you need to have in your blog? It’s not your content. It’s not your blog design. It’s not your product. It’s not your offer. Then, What is it? It is your readers. The most important thing that you need to have in order for you to succeed with your blog is your readers. More specifically, your passionate readers.

Well, you can have casual readers for your blog, but those people are not the ones who will devour your content and buy your products. People who are passionate about your blog are the ones who will eat all the things that you throw on your blog, and more importantly, buy your products. It’s not easy to catch these readers. You have to work hard in order to attract them. As a social media consultant, People often ask me ” how do I get more readers for my blog ?”, Therefore I wrote a simple post about How to get more Passionate readers to your blog. Here are 7 clever ways to attract new passionate readers to your blog:

1. Information Is Number Two, What’s Important Is Recreation

When you write your blog post, information is not the most important thing to consider. Sure, you can provide facts and figures about the latest research, but it won’t make your blog any more interesting to read. What’s important is to make your readers experience a little bit of intellectual recreation with the piece of content that you are writing. Don’t write merely to inform your readers about some facts that are happening today. That will be boring. You have to write to entertain your readers and satisfy them. Also, it is always better if you can inform them at the same time.

2. Can You Make Your Readers Think?

Do you know what makes people want to read your content more and more? Let me tell you. You have to delve into their mind while writing your content. Then, you have to make them think that they are reading their own ideas on your blog. How can you do that? By knowing about your readers, and make them feel that they are talking with themselves. Write in their perspective and point of view. In this way, your readers will really feel familiar with your writing.

3. Stay Unpredictable With Your Topic Selection

Always cover topics within your blog from different angles. You don’t want to give away the same kind of information over and over again. Why? That’s because it will bore your readers and make them want to leave your blog. It will not attract them. But, when you are unpredictable, you will be able to surprise them with every content that you write on your blog, leaving them wanting to read more of your content.

4. Inject Subtle Humor Inside Your Blog Post

Why so serious? Blogging is a fun business. It’s a place to build your opinion about something and share your ideas. So, you don’t have to be so serious with your blog. On a side note, it can be a serious business for you, but it shouldn’t be a serious reading for your readers. Your blog needs a touch of humor in order to keep your readers interested in it. You can share your ideas and opinions, but be sure to inject some humor when you do it.

5. Let Your Readers Wander In Their Imagination

Do you know why people love to read romance novels? That’s because of the story element within it. If romance novels don’t have any story to offer, do you think people will be willing to spend their time and money on it? So, why don’t use the same principle in your blog? Why don’t you let your readers wander in their imagination? You can use the story element in your blog post too, and it will keep your readers engaged with your blog.

6. Leave The Hint About What They’ll Get Next

At the conclusion of your blog post, you shouldn’t let your readers hanging around feeling confused about what to do next. You have to leave them begging for more content from you. How can you do it? You can do that by giving them the hint about what they’ll get next, but you shouldn’t give them any specific information about it. Tell your readers about the next topic that you’ll write about. This will keep your readers’ expectations high.

7. Write With Passion

How can you attract passionate readers if you don’t write your blog post with passion? Passion is important in your writing. It is the fuel that will keep your readers feel persuaded to read your content more. So, you should write with passion. This will help you to enjoy your writing more. Your readers can spot whether you are passionate about your writing or not just by reading your first paragraph. So, be sure to be passionate from the start. In this way, you’ll create a great impression from the first time they get in touch with your writing.

Conclusion:

These are my tips for ” Attract New Passionate Readers To Your Blog or any blogging platform “, Now it’s your time! Please tell me what is your strategies generate more and more passionate readers for your blog? How you are implementing them to improve your reader’s views?

Why You Should Add Case Studies In Your Sales Page ?

Many people are complaining that their sales message is so lousy that it can’t generate even a 1% conversion rate. They cannot even make a sale at all. The traffic is there, the offer is good, but no sales. What’s going on? Is there anything wrong with it? If you experience the same situation, perhaps the problem is the way you present your sales message to your audience. Do you want to know a simple method to boost your sales page conversion? You should add some case studies in your sales copy. Why is it important?

Here are 5 reasons why you should add some case studies to your sales page

1. It Proves That Your Product Works

How can you prove that your product will really work as you claim it to be? You can’t prove the truth of your advertising without telling your audience about how it works. And case studies can help you to present how you use your product to help real people get out of their problems and enjoy a better life. For instance, if you are selling a weight loss product on your sales page, how can you prove to your audience that your product can really help them to lose weight? You can do it by doing a 30-day case study about how your product can really help an overweight person to gain their ideal weight in the course of 30 days. So, instead of putting a photoshopped ‘ before and after photo in your sales message, you can guide your audience every step of the way with your case study.

2. It Gives Assurance Toward Your Product

Without any case study, all your claims can be regarded as bogus claims by your audience. Why? That’s because you never prove it. You never prove to your audience that your claims are not bogus. With case studies, you can easily give assurance toward your product, for those people who are still doubting it. They might think that your product is overpriced. They might think that it is not worthy enough to buy, and so on. But, with the appearance of case studies on your sales page, they will become more compelled to buy it because they can really tell your product’s value based on the case studies that you’ve presented.

3. It Establishes Strong Value For Your Product Immediately

Not many marketers dare to put their case studies in their sales message. Why? That’s because most of them just sell their product to make money. They never test it. They never use it themselves. They just research a hot topic that can potentially have a good market, and they create a product to fill that market. But, if you put case studies on your sales page, it will be a different story. People will be able to see the value of your product because the case studies themselves will prove that you really believe in your product. And it will boost the value of your product automatically.

4. It Increases Your Sales Conversion Naturally

Most people don’t want to buy a product because they don’t trust the product. They are not willing to spend their money away on a useless product. Or, they are not compelled enough that the product will be valuable for them. When you put case studies in your sales message, it will increase the perceived value of your product immediately. Also, it will compel more people to buy because if the product works for others, it will certainly work for them as well. Thus, your sales conversion will soar.

5. It Creates Trust Between You And Your Potential Customers

Case studies will also help you to create instant trust between you and your potential customers. Even though they might end up not buying your product, for now, they will acknowledge you as one of many experts within your niche. Why? That’s because of your dedication to presenting your value to your audience. With this bond of trust, you will be able to build long-term relationships with them. Believe it or not, those who don’t decide to buy your product right away will keep expecting your next product and eventually buy one of them. It is important to presell your audience and give them more motivation and encouragement to buy your product right away.

Conclusion:

There are many reasons why you should add case studies in your sales message. but, I just mentioned ” Top 5 reasons about the importance of case studies “. Now, it’s your turn! What are some of your tried and best ways for improving your sales page using case studies? Tell us your experience with us 🙂

Prepare Your On Demand Authority Link Building Campaign

Search engines have their own algorithm to rank website. Some of the common denominators are same. If your site is listed or pages are indexed, it doesn’t guarantee a rank in search engines. There are various factors that govern ranking factor such as on-page and off-page optimization. You need to understand keyword relevancy, body content and number of quality authority links pointing back to your website. These days, social media influence can be a big factor in your search engine traffic and eventually your ranking.First of all, your domain need to be listed in popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, and then you need to evolve in SERP (search engine results page) to achieve high targeted traffic and rank. The whole process is though time consuming and lots of effort, but not impossible if you take the right step to do it.

Create Backlinks from Authority Link Profiles

Backlinks are fundamental factor of ranking in search engines. These are like votes, the more you get, the more you rank. However, there is a crucial factor that plays a pivotal role in ranking that is quality backlinks. Google almost three years back started penalizing those websites who had unnatural backlinks. Google stresses on organic growth and thus it is important to get valid Authority backlinks from quality sites. The best way to get valid backlinks is to write great content. If you write informative content, it may happen other websites link back your link in their site. Also social platforms are excellent place to spread your content to get traffic. When you are getting traffic, eventually you will get links.

I wrote a simple E book about ” 10 Authoritive link Building strategies and finding Relevant, high quality backlink profiles for improve your domain Authority and keyword position. Yes It’s free 🙂 This is your guide to start generating more high-quality authority backlinks from trusted domains. Need Help planing your 2014 Link Building campaign goal ? Request free site Analysis.

LinkedIn for Marketer – Learn How To Convert Potential Leads From LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the increasingly growing network for the business professionals all around the world. LinkedIn is the best platform for grownups as well as for those people who are actually serious about spreading the word about their own business. There is no doubt that LinkedIn is a great platform for marketers as well as for brands. The more your business will get a share with the people so it appears to be better. LinkedIn is the place for businesses to network along with other businesses and people. Many small and big businesses are using such professional social networking portals for establishing a connection with the people who assist them to grow the business globally. This is the beauty of online networking.

LinkedIn getting 187 Million monthly unique visitors from 200 countries

It is quite important to learn the tips which should be followed by the marketers and by the brands as busy business owners and professionals can really get great benefits from it. Below mentioned are the benefits which the LinkedIn marketers and brands may get:

You will get a high volume of quality customers by using the feature of LinkedIn’s recommendation where the satisfied customers will make the recommendation for your brand or for your company. It is true that Word of mouth referral is considered to be the most effective tool of marketing so make most from it.

LinkedIn permits their users to create a strong network of the industry through the Group memberships as well as other features of the network. There are several groups which you may join and so you may even create your group to invite the connections of your industry on LinkedIn with this you can also get various business referrals.

Your business and brand credibility will get established for the potential customers by linking the profile to the twitter account or to your blog, as there are more than 150,000 companies are using LinkedIn.

You can get the practical answers to questions about managing your business and brand through LinkedIn Answers, which is a tool where members can share their level of expertise by answering the questions of other members.

LinkedIn is quite lucrative as it allows your business to grow and let people get aware about your business and services offered. You may download my e-book absolutely free from where you may get to know various useful tips for modern marketers through which they will get the targeted and potential customers, they can popularize their brands and services offered by their business and can also enhance the credibility of their brand or company. I wrote an ebook about how to improve the LinkedIn profile professionally as a marketer. It’s absolutely free and no catch at all, Please feel free to download the ebook from below.